Photo: The power of steam: a restored locomotive running on the Swanage Railway in England. Expanding steam releases energy that drives the engine's pistons. It's pretty obvious that the steam leaving the chimney still contains quite a bit of energy, which is one reason why engines like thi...
A car’s engine is its heart: It generates the power needed to move the vehicle forward. Read on to learn more about common engine layouts and how they work.
The Jaguar engine is "oversquare," with wider cylinders whose pistons don't push so far. These terms are explained more fully below. Sponsored links How big do the cylinders need to be? It's not just how many cylinders a car has that's important but how much power each one can make...
Double acting pistons work on both sides A conventional piston pressurizes fluids only in its forward stroke. Such a piston is also known as a single-acting piston. However, certain pistons pressurize fluids in both the forward and return strokes. This is made possible by using a fixed connect...
If you have read How Car Engines Work, then you are familiar with the concept behind the four-stroke engine. Car engines arrange pistons in three typical patterns, as shown here: (Click on image to see animation) V - The cylinders are arranged in two banks set at an angle to one anoth...
1 It also keeps pistons up to 50% cleaner than required by ILSAC GF-5.2 Why is the complete protection of all the parts of your engine so important? When pistons get dirty, their friction increases which causes the mechanism to work harder to maintain quality performance. The more friction...
In an engine, the linear motion of the pistons is converted into rotational motion by the crankshaft. The rotational motion is nice because we plan to turn (rotate) the car's wheels with it anyway. Now let's look at all the parts that work together to make this happen, starting with ...
When the engine is going, this momentum pulls some pistons down to draw fuel in while others go up to compress fuel that is already in the system. At the other end of the crankshaft is a cog connected via a belt to the other engine parts - this is used to start the engine. Before...
An engine is a machine that converts energy into mechanical force or motion that can turn pistons and wheels. The purpose of an engine is to provide power, a steam engine provides mechanical power by using the energy of steam. Steam engineswere the first successful engines invented and were ...
How Does an Engine Work? Just like how our stomachs need food to keep us alive, most car engines need gasoline to turn on and work. If we were to look inside a car's engine, we would see cylinder shapes. Each one of these cylinders has many parts to it, such as pistons and spark...